Remember
by Vaneria Potter
Summary: Years after The Last Battle, Susan remembers what once was. Slight Susanbashing if you are picky.


_Disclaimer: Must we? I don't own Narnia._

_Summary: Years later, Susan remembers her siblings. Slight Susan-bashing._

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I stand here alone, wrapped in a shawl and the latest fashionable clothing. I face the monument and look without seeing. I remember.

It has been three years since that fateful day.

Three years since my parents and siblings died in that railway accident.

Three years since I have heard or been able to speak of Narnia, where I once ruled with my brothers and sister.

Once I was known as Queen Susan the Gentle, Queen of Narnia and Chatelaine of Cair Paravel.

I dread to think of what I am known as now. Aslan forgives our flaws and doubts, even when we do not deserve it. But I fear that my crimes are so great that not even the Great Lion can cleanse me of them.

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I have betrayed them all, not by any accident, but of my own will, of my own wish. 

My parents, Helen and John Pevensie, who raised me to be true to myself, to love my family and be loyal to my friends. I betrayed them by deliberately turning my back on all of the things that they taught me.

I denied who I was, who I had once been. I was so obsessed with myself and how others flocked around me that I did not notice the pain I caused my siblings with my willful self-delusion. I have no real friends, only people that I am seen with because I thought it would make me look better.

Did I learn nothing from Rabadash! I allowed myself to be taken in by his pretty words and flattery, ignoring all of Peter's concern for my future with him, Edmund's caution to not judge so hastily, Lucy's worry for her sister.

Peter had been forced to threaten to issue a royal decree before I would consent to go with Edmund to visit Calormen before answering Rabadash's suit, and my foolishness nearly caused the destruction of Narnia.

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Peter, the oldest of us four, who eventually became the High King. He was closest to me in both age and friendship, and I miss him the most. He saw the person beneath the exterior that I tried to present to the world. He never gave up on me, no matter how much of a brat I was being. 

I betrayed him as well. I pushed him away and shut him out, ignoring how it must have hurt him when I refused to spend time with him, brushing him off in favor of some silly pursuit that could have easily been done some later time.

Peter would always place us, especially me, and our safety before himself. He was away defending our borders when the _Splendor Hyline_ sailed into Narnia, and was met with the news that Rabadash planned to invade. Edmund and Lucy rode with our army to fight him, and when Peter returned he worried himself to the point of distraction until they returned. I spent the time worrying about my fate should they fail and Rabadash find a way to reach us.

But I have always been more self-centered than my siblings, focused on myself and how other saw me. People started calling me the "Beauty of the Family", and I let it go to my head. I started imagining myself as superior to my siblings. I saw Peter's nobility and strength and called him a foolish optimist, who needed to rejoin reality.

I saw Peter's disappointment in what I was allowing myself to become, but he still held out hope for me, still had faith that I would come to my senses. He never gave up, no matter what I did or said, and it was only when I had driven Lucy to tears by calling Narnia a foolish game and scolded him for encouraging our younger siblings in their fantasy, that he finally turned away.

Even then, he never looked at me with anything but the gentle affection we had always shared. Edmund had glared at me with hate and scorn, Lucy looked up at me with her eyes filled with tears and disappointment, but Peter had never looked at me with anything but the love of a brother.

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Edmund, younger than me, but so much stronger. He never failed to tell me when he thought that I was doing something silly, never hesitated to tell me that I was still a young girl, and was in no position to be so superior and condescending. He always told me the hard truths that the others were too diplomatic or too nice to say. 

I betrayed him terribly. On the occasions that I noticed him at all, it was usually to scold him or point out a flaw. I called him childish, told him to stop pretending to be an adult. I treated him like a disobedient or willful child, who was refusing to see sense, or listen to others. I refused to acknowledge that he was right, most of the time. I would not admit that I was acting like a spoiled brat who thought that she was better, smarter than everyone else.

When we were listening to the Beavers on our first night in Narnia, and then finally noticed that he was missing, my first thought was that he was being selfish and immature, and that this was just one more ploy to get attention. Peter and especially Lucy were frantic over his safety, if he was lost or hurt, out of their minds with worry. I was thinking of how best to word my scolding when we found him again.

When we met Aslan, my first thought was how wonderful everything was, and how we were being treated, even revered. Lucy and Peter's thoughts were on helping Edmund and bringing him home. When Edmund was returned, I did not spare a moment to think of what he must have gone through, and when he apologized for everything, it was Lucy, who had the most reason of all of us to hate him, who embraced and forgave him first, and I who stayed back.

I have often wondered if my scorn, ridicule and neglect of him contributed to his temporary alliance with the White Witch.

I never sided with the forces of Evil, but I wonder if I did not betray Narnia all the more grievously than Edmund ever did. He was young, driven by the desire for others to see him for himself, rather than the second Pevensie boy.

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Lucy, the baby of the family, who loved me and looked up to me, even when I treated her as more of a child than Edmund. Lucy was almost five years younger than me, but even as a child, far more mature and caring than I ever was. She saw everything with innocence and love, always seeking the best in people, even if it meant that she would suffer for it. 

If she had not heard accounts of the White Witch first-hand, and been so concerned for her friend's safety, I am not sure that she wouldn't have tried to befriend Jadis. If there was even a spark of good in the Witch, Lucy would have been the one to bring it out.

I betrayed her perhaps the worst of all. I knew that it broke her heart every time I called Narnia silly, or told her to stop playing games when she wanted to talk about the wonderful times we had there. The second time we visited Narnia, to help Caspian overthrow his evil Uncle Miraz, I knew how much I hurt her when I told her that she was imagining things when she claimed to have seen Aslan.

Of all of us, Lucy has always loved Aslan the most. It was Lucy who insisted on following Aslan when he went to meet with the Witch, who asked to walk with him on that horrible journey. She knew the danger that it would put her in, and walked with him anyway, her only thought to give comfort to a near stranger. She would have been at Aslan's side even as the Witch killed him, if he would have let her.

She tried to tell us of Aslan's warning, of how he was trying to guide us out of the terrible mess we had gotten ourselves into. I didn't believe her, and I convinced Peter and Trumpkin to ignore her. When she woke us again that night, saying that she was going whether we followed or not, I still refused to believe her until Aslan stood almost in front of us.

I knew that Lucy had a brave and compassionate spirit. I knew of her strength and stubbornness and honesty. I knew that I would never match her faith and seemingly boundless love.

So instead I belittled it, telling her that she needed to socialize more, or study so that she could earn grades closer to mine. I knew Lucy was stronger than me, so I tried to make her inferior in both of our eyes.

I knew that I was slowly killing a piece of her heart when I insisted that she start acting like I did, saying that she would never amount to anything if she didn't find a good husband, as there was little else she could do with herself.

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And then there was Aslan. Oh, how terribly I betrayed him. 

Aslan was light, and all the things that were good in the world. He was the potential of all that we could make ourselves become, if we tried. Aslan was the strength that helped shape the queen that I eventually became.

Aslan _was_ Narnia, far more than the land or the creatures that dwelled there. He was the heart and soul of all of us. He told us to rule well together, to never forget our duty to Narnia and responsibility to our subjects.

I betrayed Narnia, betrayed Aslan, because I was too wrapped up in myself to remember to always carry faith, to care about how much I hurt my siblings with my cruel laughter when they talked of the old days. So obsessed with popularity that I forgot the vows I took, before all of Our people, and forgot the oldest of creeds: _Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen._

Whether that is true or not, I certainly do not feel like a queen. I do not feel like the woman whose name was once sung to the four corners of the world, who was considered a wise and gentle ruler.

My name is Susan Pevensie, and I am alone, with nothing but my memories and my shame.

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_Anyway, you know the drill: Review and tell me what you think._

_Thanks, _

_Nat_


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